


Understanding A Car Crash

by A_Ghost_Called_Boo



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Nonbinary Fun Ghoul (Danger Days), Nonbinary Party Poison (Danger Days), Other, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28641096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Ghost_Called_Boo/pseuds/A_Ghost_Called_Boo
Summary: To understand the last moments of the remainder of those who used to call themselves "The Fabulous Killjoys", you must first understand the nature of a car crash and the intricate rituals that it entails
Relationships: Fun Ghoul/Party Poison (Danger Days)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 15





	Understanding A Car Crash

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this all on 15 y/o me because this was xyr fic idea. Took me two years to write it, but ultimately it was xem who dictated how it'd all end.
> 
> [Title from Understanding In A Car Crash by Thursday, but i got rid of the "in" for plot reasons]

There are three key components to a car crash: the car, the lovers and the wall. The car is the driving force- the fine equilibrium everything rests upon and the final thing that ultimately pushes it over the edge. Sometimes the car is a car, other times is your best friends that you’ve grown to considering your brothers going on something as small and insignificant as a run and never coming back. It’s the way the DJ speaks when he announces it, like the words weighed his tongue down, begging for the silence. Yet the doctor doesn’t give in, as he delivers the coroner's report loud and clear: 2 killjoys, the Jet Star and Kobra Kid, pixelated in the am while heading down Route Guano. Sometimes the car isn’t a car at all and neither is the wreck it leaves behind.

Ghoul isn’t certain in which of the two he’s found himself in, with Poison behind the wheel and eir bright red hair splayed out like a thin curtain in front of eir eyes- not enough to blind em, yet, but enough to make everything look  _ red _ . In the passenger seat, he looks outside the window with his chin precariously propped against his fist- the slightest jerk of the wheel could send him tumbling through the window, but the red-haired crash queen drives smooth and straight. And maybe that’s what love feels like- trusting that despite not wearing a seatbelt, ey would never do something to intentionally hurt him- or maybe they’re both past their breaking points and clinging onto whatever’s left to give them a fix of reality until they crash and burn.

They  _ are  _ the lovers, after all, far too young to die and far too reckless to just turn around from their own demise. Doomed from the moment they set foot in the car, tracing constellations with gasoline before racing down the interstate trying to outrun the burning they’ve created and the memories the celestial witnesses held onto, tightlipped and placid in their silver glow, as the two screamed their lungs out at the moon. That’s how they found each other- in the middle of shattered stained glass and in the rubbles of everything they’ve ever loved- lonely kids living in the fallout of a war they didn’t choose, yet paid so dearly for. It’s only natural, then, that they fit together so well- jagged edge against jagged edge, both broken with the same cruel machine that collapsed the sky around them- they let the feeling consume them, desperate to be whole again. And it  _ shouldn’t  _ be love, it should be something worthy of its own name, but Ghoul was never the best with words and as Poison grips the steering wheel tight with bone white knuckles, the words remain stuck in their place, hidden in the nook behind what was left of his heart.

“What-what, uhh...what’s that called again?” the red-haired killjoy breaks the silence, startling the latter out of this thoughts. Eir voice is raspy and eir words hollow and uncertain, as ey stumble over eir tongue in an attempt to try and clear eir throat, but it feels raw and vulnerable like the nights spent under the open sky and for a moment it knocks all the wind out of Ghoul’s lungs.

“What?” he repeats dumbfounded, his thoughts racing in time with the world outside the car as the two bleed into each other like spraypaint running down a weather brick wall.

“The song.” Poison explains, turning to look at the younger and pausing for a drawn out moment when their eyes meet, “You...you were humming a, uhh...a song.” ey swallows thickly, eir gaze flickering downwards for a split second.

“Yeah?” the latter asks distractedly, as he feels himself lean in closer to em, and it takes him every ounce of will in his body to stop before he closed the space between their lips, “C-can you desc-des- _ describe _ it?”

The driver nods once, eir gaze lingering for just one more second before ey returns it to the stretch of road in front of them. Silence settles between the two, though only for a beat, as Poison begins drumming their fingers against the steering wheel in a rhythmic pattern before clumsily attempting an off-key rendition of the song Ghoul was mindlessly humming along to before. His blood runs cold when his mind finally connects the dots between the familiar tune and the first- and  _ last _ \- concert he had dragged Kobra along to jus a couple of years ago, when sneaking out into the Lobby was the extent of their “rebellious” endeavours. The humming stops, but the black haired killjoy doesn’t realise it until his lover places a hand on his knee.

“Are you alright?” ey asks, concern clear in eir voice, and the other nods hard before choking down a sob and opening his mouth to sing. It’s far from good, his voice cracking every so often and lyrics fragmented into maybe two or three coherent words from years of not having heard the original even once, but it doesn’t  _ matter _ . This isn’t for some grand fucking audience or stuck up assholes with double digit scores- this is for him.

As the last notes ring out, broken and out of tune, Ghoul wants to cry more than ever before- tired and worn out and so bone-achingly sad- but he doesn’t. Instead, he places a hand on top of Poison’s, letting the warmth of their bodies bleeding together ground him, even if it was on such a small scale. Once he calms down, he gently pries eir hand off and ey let him, eyes still trained on the road as he begins to play with eir fingers. Then, he starts kissing eir knuckles and when that loses its charm, he moves onto the back of eir hand, and the eir wrist-

“Ghoul?” ey asks softly and the latter humms to let em know he’s listening, “If...if i asked you- would you sing for me?”

The younger pauses surprised before giving the back of eir hand one last kiss and carefully returning it from where he’d lifted it off his knee. “Yeah.” he breathed, “Of course. What do you want me to?”

“I-” ey starts, but cuts emself short before changing whatever ey was going to say to, “Anything. I just...need you here.”

Ghoul doesn’t understand what ey means, but entertains eir request regardless, trying his best- and by all accounts failing- to sing along to whatever songs he remembered, like a ghost radio playing on a frequency only those desperate enough to look for can find. Sometimes the driver chimes in as well, singing equally as out of key as eir lover, but in that moment it is really them and as Ghoul glances at em from the corner of his eye, he thinks he catches a glimpse of understanding reflected off the way that Poison smiles.

The last element of a car crash is the wall- a hulking beast that’s 40 feet high, but only a tenth in thickness, as it envelops the City like the corrupted hug of a fake mother, driving long spindly fingers into the spine of her child. Sometimes the wall is just a stupid sheet of concrete, painted in clinical black and whites, other times is a shared knowing look between the lovers as driver takes eir hands off the wheel, but never lifts eir foot off the gas, as the passenger reaches out for eir hand, that meets him halfway and sets time moving in slow motion under their shared touch. It’s the moment metal collides with the solid barrier in its way, the impact sending both of the killjoys inside flying through the windshield for a painfully long moment before ending their lives with a resounding snap of bone and marrow. And it is the engine catching fire, heating up the remaining gas in the old car’s tank that blows a hole in the wall to set free anyone brave or desperate enough to cross it’s path.

Sometimes a car crash is not a car crash, but a last attempt at revenge.

**Author's Note:**

> Wooo, this only took like 4 hours to write. Goodnight now, i'm going to sleep now and stop being as much of an edgy little shit <3\. Feel free to yell at me in the comments or @dead-silxnce on tumblr


End file.
